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Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma (Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma / Heineken México) (English: Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery) is a major brewery based in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, founded in 1890. It is a subsidiary of Heineken International.

The Cuauhtémoc brewery was founded in Monterrey in 1890 by José A. Muguerza, Francisco G. Sada Muguerza, Alberto Sada Muguerza, Isaac Garza Garza (brother in-law of Francisco and Alberto, married to their sister Consuelo Sada Muguerza), Joseph M. Schnaider, with capital of 150,000 pesos, starting with the Carta Blanca brand. Cuauhtémoc brewery produced its first beer barrel in 1893 and won first prize in the Chicago and Paris world fairs.

In 1909 Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc started to expand vertically. To provide glass bottles, in 1909, Vidrios y Cristales de Monterrey, S.A., later Vidriera Monterrey, S.A. later Grupo Vitro, was founded. In order to produce boxes, bottle caps, and packaging materials, Fabricas de Carton Monterrey was founded[citation needed] in 1900. In 1929, Malta, S.A. was established to produce malt for the brewery. The cardboard box department would eventually become Titán Company.[clarification needed]

During the Mexican Revolution which began in 1910, its original founders supported Victoriano Huerta. As a consequence, his rival Venustiano Carranza seized the brewery, so the founders' families fled to Texas. They re-acquired the brewery through the intervention of U.S. and Russian diplomats.

The Sociedad Cuauhtémoc was founded in 1918 to provide medical and educative services to the workers' families; the final objective was to provide a welfare system to avoid strikes. The working day was reduced from twelve to nine hours in 1907.

By 1936 the holdings of the Garza, Calderon and Sada families and their associates were divided into two groups: the Cuauhtemoc (brewery) group and the Vidriera (glass) group. In that year the family's holdings were reorganized, creating Valores Industriales S.A. (VISA) as a holding company controlling the majority of shares of the firms formerly held by Cuauhtemoc, especially Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc and Famosa.

During the 20th century, Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma was headed by Jose Calderon Muguerza and the two Garza Sada brothers Eugenio Garza Sada (assassinated in 1973 in a kidnapping attempt by Mexican left-wing guerrillas) and Roberto Garza Sada. In 1943, company executive Eugenio Garza Sada with his brother and other prominent people founded the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), and in 1973, the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame was opened at the site of the company headquarters.

After Eugenio Garza Sada's assassination, VISA, the Cerveceria Cuauthtemoc Moctezuma's holding, was split into two units: Visa and Grupo Industrial Alfa. Alfa received Hylsa and cash, while Visa retained the brewery business and its stake in the Banco de Londres and its affiliated institutions, and Eugenio Garza Lagüera, a son of Eugenio Garza Sada, was named CEO of Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, and Bernardo Garza Sada a son of Roberto Garza Sada was named CEO of Alfa.

When oil prices fell in 1981, Mexico's economic boom, financed with borrowed money, abruptly halted. Visa found itself more than $1 billion in debt the following year, and the federal government nationalized Banca Serfin—the nation's third-largest bank—in which Visa held a 77 percent stake. The nondeposit banks and associated financial companies in Grupo Financiero Serfin, not nationalized, were reorganized into a new financial-services group called Valores de Monterrey (Vamsa). Vamsa's life-insurance subsidiary, Seguros Monterrey, was the largest in Mexico.

With the integration of the Moctezuma brewery in 1985, the Dos Equis, Superior, Sol, and Noche Buena brands were added to the Carta Blanca, Tecate, Bohemia and Indio brands.

In 1988 Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A. de C.V. was formed as the main subsidiary of Visa containing the beer and other companies. In 1994 FEMSA sold a 22 percent share of its beer business to John Labatt Ltd. of Canada and signed an agreement with Labatt to associate their respective companies in the United States. FEMSA became the successor of Visa in 1998. On 11 January 2010, the Dutch brewing company Heineken International announced it would acquire the beer activities of FEMSA, including Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery.[1]

The Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery has an art gallery and can be visited. Hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 17:00 and Saturday from 9:00 to 14:00. Tours are available free of charge and are offered in both English and Spanish.

The Brewery has a beer garden which offers a free glass of Bohemia, Dos Equis, or Carta Blanca. The Garden features old brewery machines and a century-old beer truck. The garden's hours are every day from 10:00 to 18:00 hrs.

Bohemia 5.3% alc. takes its name from the Czech region. It is pale pilsner, although recently a new dark Vienna beer has been launched as Bohemia Obscura (See Image Gallery below). In addition, Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma has added a craft-style wheat beer to the line – "Bohemia Weizen" a German Kristallweizen was released in summer 2011.[5]

Dos Equis is a lager that was originally brewed by a German-born Mexican brewer. The brand was named Siglo XX ("20th century") to commemorate the arrival of the new century, and the bottles were marked with the Roman numeral for 20 ("XX"), thus "Dos Equis" which is Spanish for "two Xs".

The main brand Dos Equis XX Special Lager is a 4.45% abv pale lager sold in green bottles.[6]Dos Equis XX Amber is a 4.7% Vienna-style amber lager sold in brown bottles,[7] and was first exported to the United States in 1973.[8]

Tecate and Tecate Light are popular pale lagers named after the city of Tecate, Baja California, where they were first produced in 1943. Originally brewed by a local company, Tecate was acquired by Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma in 1955. Tecate is sold in both distinctive red and blue aluminium cans and in twist-top bottles. Tecate Light was launched in 1992 by Héctor Emilio Ayala, who was the project manager.

In 2013 Tecate Titanium, containing a greater amount of alcohol was launched as a new product of the company.

Noche Buena Its name comes from the Spanish name of the poinsettia flower, commonly attached to the Christmas festivities. It is a bock styled seasonally brewed beer, usually sold from early October to late December.

The advertisements feature a bearded, debonair gentleman roughly in his 70s (portrayed by actor Jonathan Goldsmith)[9] with Frontline narrator Will Lyman conducting voiceovers. As Ottmar Liebert's "Barcelona Nights" plays in the background, the advertisements featured a montage of daring exploits involving "the most interesting man" when he was younger. The precise settings are never revealed, but he performs feats such as: freeing an angry bear from a painful-looking bear trap; shooting a pool trick shot before an audience; catching a marlin while cavorting in a Hemingway-esque scene with a young woman; winning an arm-wrestling match in a South American setting; surfing the killer wave; and bench pressing two young women in a casino setting, each woman being seated in a chair.

In the commercial he says, "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis." Each commercial ends with the sign-off: "Stay thirsty, my friends."[8]

After nearly a decade of being the mascot for the beer, Jonathan Goldsmith's character was sent on a one-way trip to Mars in a commercial. From September 2016, "The Most Interesting Man in the World" is a French actor named Augustin Legrand.[10]

The campaign was ended in 2018, and replaced with a new campaign called "Keep It Interesante".[11]

Tecate beer has begun advertising heavily in the United States; initially in the Spanish-language media and more recently in the English-language media. Their tag lines are "Con Carácter" ("With Character") and "It's not beer, it's cerveza".[12][13]

Tecate was the primary sponsor of Mexican race driver Adrián Fernández during his career in CART in the 1990s and early 2000s.[14]

In 2009, Tecate Light launched a television ad campaign targeted at the Mexican-American community, which features boxer Oscar de La Hoya and wrestler Rey Mysterio, Jr.[15] Also in 2009, Tecate announced a sponsorship agreement with ESPN sports.[16]

In 2015 a series of ads were recorded with the action actor Sylvester Stallone, in the above-mentioned ads Stallone appears saying the phrase "Te hace falta ver más box" (In English You need to watch more boxing) in which he ridicules some men since according to it is necessary to them to see the above-mentioned sport. In the end Stallone says that "Somos box" ("We are box") while it appears with some retired boxers and while it sounds the theme "Eye of the tiger" from Survivor. In Mexico the word is changed to Bax, as Stallone uses the English pronunciation for the sport.

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, Tecate ran a television ad mocking Donald Trump's proposal to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The "Tecate Beer Wall" is "a wall that brings us together, and it's going to be huge. You're welcome, America".[17]